OptionsHouse Rebuilt

Options-centric online brokers trade Monster and OptionsHouse surprised us last May by announcing their merger. The merged Website launched on Monday.

The new platform can be found at OptionsHouse’s Website, but its features originally were developed by tradeMonster, with a few enhancements based on feedback from customers. Pointing a browser at trademonster.com now sends you to optionshouse.com—but tradeMonster customers will recognize the platform, and can log in with their existing user name and password. OptionsHouse clients head to a familiar Website, but their experience will be different.

The companies, now a subsidiary of Aperture Group, have been good about keeping their customers up-to-date on their plans and timing, encouraging OptionsHouse clients to “paper” trading on the tradeMonster platform to familiarize themselves. Developers spoke with some of OptionsHouse’s biggest customers to identify key features they most wanted to keep, and they also made the tradeMonster-based pages load faster.

“We maintained the OptionsHouse name because that side had a larger customer base and more brand equity,” explains CEO Michael Curcio. The two customer bases differed greatly in how they wanted their trading experience to unfold: OptionsHouse traders preferred a clean, simple platform while tradeMonster’s didn’t mind added features. For instance, tradeMonster clients wanted its whole tradeCycle process, which guides them through choosing, evaluating, and executing a trade, and then encourages them to create an exit strategy. OptionsHouse customers just wanted a trade ticket without all of the added foofaraw. Developers have opted to add a streamlined trade ticket within weeks.

The mobile app was also developed at tradeMonster, and customers can participate in frequent Webinars to learn how it works. Robert Haverback, OptionsHouse’s vice president of marketing, says he had a customer who was irate about the revamped mobile app. “We walked him through it,” says Haverback, “and 90 minutes later, he wrote back saying, ‘I retract that entire e-mail.’ ” This customer turned out to be very happy with the options analytics available on mobile.

The new platform’s pricing will be $4.95 for stock trades, and $4.95 plus $0.50 per contract for options. If you place a spread trade, you’ll be charged the base $4.95 fee just once—many brokers charge the base fee for each leg of a spread trade. This is an increase of 20 cents from the original OptionsHouse pricing, but existing customers will have their fee structures grandfathered in.

I’m surprised at how fast the two brokers introduced the changes, perhaps because I’ve monitored the glacial pace at which Schwab is absorbing optionsXpress. That acquisition took place in 2011, and the platforms still operate independently.

SPEAKING OF OPTIONSXPRESS, I’m keeping an eye on Rick Tomsic, who helped it launch futures trading for its retail customers in 2008. After Schwab acquired optionsXpress, it spun off the futures trading to Gain Capital; Tomsic and his team moved on. Now they’re cooking up a new retail futures-trading platform called Tradovate. I’ve yet to screw up the courage to trade futures, though I’m an active options trader, and one of the barriers for me is the unpredictable pricing. It’s hard to tell until you pull the trigger on a trade just how much it will cost. Tradovate plans to make that more transparent. Check out his blog at blog.tradovate.com if futures interest you.

IF YOU TAKE SOCIAL SENTIMENT into account when choosing investments, you should check out LikeFolio. This site scans English-language Twitter posts and evaluates the sentiments about publicly traded companies and their brands and products. It requires a Twitter account, but if you’re a TD Ameritrade customer, you can access the LikeFolio research directly from its Web platform.

Clicking on the Social tab when viewing a stock summary brings up a collection of recent tweets, a count of tweets mentioning the company, and a sentiment indicator. The indicator shows the percentage of positive tweets on the company and its various brands, which can help you decide on a trade. Tweet safely.

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